Swinburne
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Typically, free will is recognized as having the ability to act or make choices as an independent being, and not solely as a result of pressure or predestination (fate). Yet in the context of Why God Allows Evil, free will is identified as a choice that is able to us, and not to others (namely God), in choosing between good and evil. Swinburne deems this type of free will as free and responsible choice. Our choices are not able to God, because He gave us this (to use Swinburnes term now, and through out the rest of this discourse) free and responsible choice, which in turn, allows us to be the ultimate creators of our choices. As individual humans, it is a great good we have free and responsible choice, but as we know, not all choices are harmless, and it is our free will to make choices that are harmful to others or ourselves. Moral evil Ð- the harm men, women, and children cause other men, women, and children Ð- comes from the evil we create with our free and responsible choice.
Now as numb as this may read, a greater good can come from the pain and suffering individual humans endure as a result of free and responsible choice. This claim is important to Swinburnes position on the free will defense for it underlines the responsibility humans have for one another.
Swinburne supports this claim that God has a right to allow individual humans to suffer to some extent in order to benefit themselves or others, with examples of the responsibility humans have for themselves and others. A fairly obvious example would be the soldiers who are allowed to die for their country and in so doing are privileged, for they benefit the lives of their family and friends (Feinberg 92). Fighting for your country is certainly a grave responsibility. Yet my favorite example (and not just because it references heroin) is found in the conclusion of his Why God Allows Evil argument. Swinburne proposes a thought experiment to illustrate the free and responsible choice we have. It goes: imagine you were born into the present world as an adult, thereby having knowledge and the joy of sensation, but are only to live for a few minutes. You are faced with a decision to choose the kind of short life you are to live. You can live a life of great bodily pleasure induced by a drug such as heroin, in which you will have no effect in the world; or you can endure a life of great pain such as giving birth, in which will have considerable good effects on others in the world. Which choice will make your short-lived life the best life to have led? Swinburne says we should choose the second option, for an individuals suffering is benefiting others in the world. Then again, it is our free will to choose whatever option we will, and if we will heroin, we rightfully choose heroin.
Though giving birth may serve a greater good than a spoonful of said content and a syringe, does that allow God the right to let one suffer for the benefit of another, without the consent of the one who is suffering? Swinburne uses an analogy to parents to illustrate